Faith and Reason as a Yin-Yang

Let great powers and wisdom behold a cauldron of truth and virtue, which will enable all of us to bring about controversial change. It is through empirical knowledge that we can allow our society to change but only if we choose to embrace these changes. Cleary history has show that in order to do so there is harmony between faith and reason. This harmony can be thought so because there is a symbiotic relationship between the two. With a yin-yang relationship, this harmony can be truly imagined however it’s not a pure yin-yang, but an adaptation of sorts. Faith clearly has the smaller proportion of our yin-yang and reason has a much more dominate presence, as it is bigger.

The boundary that separates the two makes up for this disproportionate circle and clearly separates the two into their parts while combining together for the whole. It takes one person to be able to differentiate the two to be able to effectively combine them and utilize them. If this is not done correctly it can lead to death and there is no point in trying if one doesn’t understand these pieces. To do so would leave one at such a great disadvantage and fortunately in the case of Copernicus the combination proved to be a successful mix. While Copernicus had the correct balance, it took a person like Francis Bacon to break down this balance into its parts. In order to be successful one has to allow faith its place and not completely overrun this balance with reason. We must understand our surroundings as they may have a different balance of this faith and reason.


The symbiotic relationship between the two must be understood so that truth persists and maintains its power at the epicenter of social existence. The two of these presuppositions together allow for our race to grow, change, and create an existence for man that allows for the best possible choices from these changes.


In order to understand our surroundings we must understand the symbiotic relationship between faith and reason in our surroundings. Chronologically, Copernicus realized their proportions that comprised this relationship. He came up with an evolutionary idea, that at the time, faith was an important part of his surrounding. There can’t be any instance of hostility directed towards shrinking faith, as it seemed to reach it’s desired mass. To publish his ideas he approached this case with careful demeanor, which allowed for a circumvention of any hostility on his behalf while allowing for this evolutionary thought to occur. He said, “For even in this very remote corner of the earth where I live you are considered the highest authority by virtue of the loftiness of your office and your love for all literature and astronomy too.”(Crowe 107) If he was to create an imbalance of faith he would be giving up all the efforts in his work as it could easily be disregarded or burned.


As Sir Francis Bacon says, a wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. Faith seemed to outweigh reason during the time of Copernicus; it needed to be embraced in works that could be thought of as challenging its supremacy. To allow for controversial change, one could allow for a reduction of faith, which has the ability to diminish its power entirely over time, and if done without care could diminish your own existence. The better choice in bringing about change is to allow for the creation of this symbiotic relationship as Francis Bacon did in The Great Atlantis. Religion like a cape lays blinds our view true view of our symbiotic relationship, which allows both faith and reason to coexist, but can be seen as deceitful.


As this cape allows the people to master various powers and allow them to control environmental tendencies such as the wind like in the case of the New Atlantis, it is not an ethical way to approach the issue at hand. It is completely untruthful like the instance where the captain and his people end up on the island; they were asked whether or not they were Christians. “We were,” they answered, “fearing the less, because of the cross we had seen in the subscription.” (Weinberger 40) Clearly the captain was aware of the growing possibility that some of his crew were not religious. This gave them a cape like that previously mentioned which is a very deceitful choice. The captain fears that if he were say they were not Christians, to lie, that he could not get help.
It is from this fear that we need to use faith and reason to guide us to truth. True knowledge is only achieved when this relationship is recognized in its surroundings. For the greater good of the race, it is our responsibility, which if we know something, and feel a certain thought is true then we can’t let things get in the way of it. According to Bacon, we see that the two can coexist however irrational the cape over our yin-yang is. You can’t explain faith by any empirical means, and in the case of The New Atlantis this cape allowed for controversial change to occur.


The symbiotic relationship between faith and reason is tremendously important to preservation of truth. This truth, if you will, must be evaluated so it can be inducted into the realm on knowledge. To evaluate it, one must first decide its role in the relationship between faith and reason. In the case of Copernicus, he revolutionized European reason on page 126, saying, “Lastly, it will be realized that the sun occupies the center of the Universe,” which could not be achieved without careful evaluation.


This idea seemed at first a remarkable but false concept. However, Copernicus goes into great detail discussing the elongation of the moon, and that the idea of the sun rotating around the Earth is impossible. He goes into great detail and delivers great abundance of reasoning to support his conclusion. He evaluated the circumstances given and allowed for his idea to become truth and later become common knowledge. Likewise, Francis Bacon would do the same. It can be thought that he supports the symbiotic relationship where faith and reason go hand in hand however there needs to be consistency else there is a barrier to truth.


On page 11 of The Great Instauration, Bacon says, “knowledge being as water, which will not rise above the level from which it fell.” The barrier to truth is when this relationship is not present. In a situation where either completes outweighs it other. Truth must be at center of social existence and correctly adapt as knowledge. He says, “and for it’s value and utility it must be plainly avowed that wisdom which we have derived principally from the Greeks is but like a boyhood of knowledge.” (Weinberger 8) In other words, our current amount of knowledge is still being developed. We are still children in the sense that our knowledge is growing slowly due to the correct imbalance of faith and reason. We need to truly understand the concepts about how the correct relationship works and how it affects truth and us. This can only be achieved when reason is a bigger than yang and the part that separates the two is bigger to clearly depict they are indeed different quantities.


It is truth thought that brings out real change. We need to experiment in order to derive this true thought into real change. Experimentation is used as a supporting factor in understanding the relationship. In order to explain this relationship to another, one has to be able to reason with it and make sure it’s logical. Then once that realization has occurred then it can be adapted and it’s representation of truth is not covered underneath the deceitful cloak that once hid our symbiotic relationship’s true quantities that represented the balance.
History has shown us that there are instances in which the yin-yang relationship has become completely violated.

This is an instance where faith has completely broken its boundary with reason and fused the two together. This act allows for supremacy of one idea that may pervade truth and for this to happen is not beneficial to the human race. However, with the correct understanding of our environment and our collective belief that truth is highest of value, our yin-yang remains constant and brings good harmony. In the case of faith consisting of the bigger area of our symbiotic relation, this overpowering is only as great as we allow it to be. Copernicus revolutionized the world with his ideas and he had the support to back up his conclusion while pleasing the given circumstances.


Francis Bacon changed the world in that he realized the importance that we need to experiment with our surroundings and be able to reason with them and make a logical opinion that leads to helping the human race in more ways than one. Fallacy brings us all down, and through the truth we are able to overcome as a race and as an individual. Through these new understandings we were able to grow out of that boyhood of knowledge and to persevere on through adulthood. The major point of the two works is to propel human society into a higher understanding of the relationship between faith and reason.
Collectively, when understood they can allow for many beneficial opportunities to arise. In the eyes of Bacon, it was not for more power but for the human ability when this relationship was taken to full advantage. Through his idea on faith and reason, the symbiotic relationship that glues together the two, and the help of Copernicus to be the first one to understand this, light has shed on the truth and brought about a real foundation for change.